The heron I posted last weekend was my last bird (or any kind of photo) for 2010. Here’s my first for the new year.
And now, K and I are off to get us some Puccini, La Fanciulla del West, via the Met in HD! There’s a preview here, though the sound and picture are both just okay.
It’s a three things make a post day: My latest Quantum Leap rewatch is on TOR.COM today; the episode is “Shock Theater,” and it wraps up my discussion of the overall QL arc, at least until we get to “Mirror Image” in a month or so. Right now, I’m easing my way through season four.
I had a glance at my Annual Books Read list today. I do this every November, conclude that I haven’t read nearly enough, and then pick up my reading socks for a couple months. Then, usually around February, I’m hit by a tidal wave of teaching and slide back into my usual reading pace.
As part of this process, I went to HyperGeek and read their 2009 and 2010 roundups of shiny new, uber-amazing graphic novels, and then requested a bunch of same from the public library. I expect the house to be full of four-color goodness in a matter of days. And probably a few things that strain the definition of ‘goodness.’ And maybe even one or two that I’ll wish I hadn’t even glanced at. Hopefully there will be no Pride of Baghdad
And, finally, a photo. I was doing the kibble run to the vet’s at Kingsway and Clark(ish) awhile ago and discovered Stellar Jay heaven on the route… on Fleming and 18th, to be precise. I’ve never seen so many of the jays in one place; there were flickers aplenty, too, and one varied thrush. Most of the images I got were just okay, but I like the jay/fence combo in this one. He’s sort of glamour shotty, don’t you think?
I am catching up on an avalanche of backlogged bits and pieces, and hope to dig myself out and get back to regular blogging for you all soon. In the meantime, my latest Quantum Leap rewatch of “8 1/2 Months” is up at Tor. That’s right, folks, Sam gets his Mpreg on!!
And here is an image that should be a busy bee, but isn’t:
I love the bluster and inconstancy of November in the Pacific Northwest. The other day, I watched a rising column of leaves in a Bellingham parking lot. Some scraped the pavement in circles, others twirled aloft, climbing, making a visible thing of an unseen gyre of air. Then the wind lost its grip: the column broke up, fell apart, and the leaves hurtled over the cars, bullet-fast and harmless, flying every which way.
I love the frosty days and the torrential downpours, the winds and how they lash the huge trees back and forth, love the mornings after these blows, streets strewn with broken branches, sodden would-be kindling. The air is saturated with water, always, and the days change rapidly, fog giving way to brightness, rainclouds screaming in to engulf a surprise window of blue skies. Right now it’s sleet with a threat of coming snow. It’s dramatic, moody, anything-can-happen weather.
November is purple clouds, rain-slicked maple leaves, screamingly red, a spongy mash of birch underfoot, turning from coin gold to rot brown–all the colors are stunning during these last violent throes of autumn.
November is stumbling on foreboding, Gothic structures in the midst of a walk through a Portland neighborhood:
I am always at a low ebb, physically, emotionally and creatively, at this time of year. Things have a weight, a heaviness they lack in other months. It’s one reason why I sometimes embrace Nanowrimo (a drama unto itself!), because the mad over-the-top pace of it somehow forces me to tread, to keep myself afloat.
November is, for me, a month of beauty and slog, the two intertwined so tightly that the strands are inseparable.
photo by Kristy Boyce
The Color of Paradox
The Cage